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Defenders in Action: "Dolphin-Safe" Label Protected, For Now
Attempts by the National Marine Fisheries Service to drain the meaning from the phrase “dolphin-safe tuna” have been thwarted by a recent federal district court ruling in favor of Defenders of Wildlife.
The dolphin-safe label was originally adopted to stop the fishing industry’s deadly practice of setting nets on dolphins to get at the tuna that swim below. More than seven million dolphins were killed in the past four decades by commercial tuna fishing boats. Since the dolphin-safe label for tuna cans and pouches was created in 1990, though, dolphin deaths have dropped by 90 percent.
But the integrity of this label was thrown into doubt by a change that the fisheries service announced on New Year’s Eve, 2002. The change would have allowed tuna caught by chasing, harassing and netting dolphins to be labeled “dolphin-safe” if an independent observer verified that no dolphins were killed during the tuna hunt. By weakening the label to allow chasing and netting of dolphins, the new plan would still result in untold numbers of unseen dolphin deaths from stress and other causes. Defenders and others sued the government to reverse the decision.
During the trial, internal memos were released that revealed how the agency made its decision even though it knew about allegations that observers were routinely bribed to overlook dolphin deaths. The policy benefited Mexican and other Latin American tuna fleets—the same fleets mentioned in the bribery allegations.
Other memos revealed that the fisheries service also overlooked findings by its own scientists that the dolphin-safe program was still needed to maintain healthy dolphin populations. In an August 10 decision halting the program change, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson stated that in his 24 years with the district court, he had never “reviewed a record of agency action that contained such a compelling portrait of political meddling” into scientific decisions.
“This is yet another example of an agency under the Bush administration turning its back on science as it dismantles key environmental protections,” says Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders. “We are greatly relieved that the court put a stop to this plan before it did any lasting damage.”
